And Dream I Do
by Lillielle
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing. Hermione's been through a lot, but she can't get Bellatrix Lestrange out of her head. Warning for dubious consent and Stockholm syndrome.


_Author's Note: Warning for Stockholm Syndrome and dubious/non-consent. Song lyrics from Evanescence: "Taking Over Me."_

_I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you  
But who can decide what they dream  
And dream I do..._

It's supposed to be over. The book neatly wrapped up, the story closed. A happy ending. The princess is restored to her castle. The villain, while not conveniently caught, disappeared into the forest. A heroine's welcome.

But it's never really that simple, is it?

Hermione knows it isn't, waking up every night with a scream caught between her teeth, her chest heaving with suffocating breaths. Bellatrix's eyes filling her vision, alight with madness and something else, something Hermione can never describe.

It happened over Christmas break. A chance encounter outside Grimmauld Place and suddenly, Hermione was chained up in a nameless cellar, her clothes in tatters and her wand missing. Bellatrix sauntering in with a smirk on her lips and insanity twinkling in her gaze.

"A little Mudblood _pet_ for my Lord," Bellatrix purred, and Hermione cringed.

She doesn't like thinking about what happened next, what happened for the next ten days, before the Order finally found her. Before Kingsley blew the door off with one well-placed hex, and Harry blushed when he saw her nudity. How Tonks covered her with a conjured blanket and scowled at everyone else, her hair fire-engine red.

Bellatrix is still missing. As is her wand. Hermione's almost positive that the Dark Lord's right-hand witch has it, but she feels no inclination to buy a new one, despite her friends' consternation. It feels...wrong. Besides, she's becoming rather accomplished in wandless magic.

Her days pass in relative peace. Classes, studying, lambasting her friends for not studying. It's normal, and she relishes it. It's at nighttime, when she's curled up in her four-poster, that the dreams come. Bellatrix taunting her, tormenting her, the grip of her fingers in Hermione's hair or between Hermione's legs. The way the woman's lips twisted when she said "Mudblood."

"Bow to your Mistress, pet," Bellatrix hisses in her ear and Hermione obeys every time, slipping to the floor bonelessly, unchained. It is an unsettling image, yet one she cannot erase.

No one else can understand. How could they? She doesn't even understand herself. Her breath catches in longing whenever she hears Bellatrix's name. She grows traitorously wet at the sight of the woman's picture, at the memory of her fingers gliding down Hermione's thighs.

_What is _wrong_ with me?_ Hermione thinks in despair every night, but she has no answer.

_I'll give up everything just to find you  
__I have to be with you to live, to breathe  
__You're taking over me_

Months pass. The dreams intensify. Hermione feels like she's walking in a daze everywhere she goes. All she can think of is Bellatrix Lestrange. _Mistress._ Her grades drop a little, but not enough to cause any real concern. After all, she's been through _trauma_. It's bound to have an effect, isn't it? The professors hem and cluck over her until she wants to scream. She can't muster the energy, though.

It happens one weekend, when she visits Hogsmeade. Alone, this time. She isn't supposed to be alone, but she's so tired of having her thoughts drowned out by the incessant prattle of Ginny Weasley and the droning voices of Ron and Harry.

There's a hill behind the village, a rather rocky one with clumps of flowers springing free from the windswept tufts of grass. Hermione finds herself drawn to it, her path wandering but sure. When she starts to climb the hill, her muscles protest and her lungs burn. Sweat droplets gather at her forehead and the nape of her neck.

_Just a little bit further,_ she thinks, and can't manage to question why. Higher and higher, until she starts to see spots before her vision.

Something clunks before her in the dust and she leans forward to pick it up, her hands trembling. It's her wand.

"Hello, pet," a voice drawls. Hermione looks up and sees her, Bellatrix, standing there. Her hair is wind-tangled, her eyes as piercing as ever. Her robes are unbuttoned down the front, and Hermione can see a stripe of ghostly pale skin.

Hermione's knees thud to the ground.

"Mistress," she whispers, and weeps.


End file.
